In the sixth and final episode of Jekyll, Tom makes an unlikely alliance to rescue his family, and the full truth of his origin (and Claire’s) is revealed. Intrigued? Then it’s time for Mark to finish Jekyll.
It’s unfortunate that there won’t be anymore Jekyll for the foreseeable future. With Moffat fully running Doctor Who and working on Sherlock (though that is over for now), I don’t imagine we’ll ever get a second series of this show. Yet even despite that, I was pleased with how most of the hanging plot threads were resolved while Moffat introduced some clear ideas for a sequel series. Most of all, though, I just want to watch more of James Nesbitt and Gina Bellman, and it’s with “Hyde” that I realize just what a spectacular thing Moffat and this cast of actors has pulled off.
That’s the overarching thing I feel: I am very satisfied by these six episodes, the stories that have been told, the performances that I’ve witnessed, and the complex mythology that’s surprised me to the very end. That’s not to say there weren’t things I didn’t necessarily liked here. I enjoyed the idea of Katherine Reimer as a character, and I think Michelle Ryan is a fine actress, but her development started off strong, and then it completely disappeared. She barely did anything at all in episodes three through five, and then I’m supposed to believe her emotional goodbye to Tom Jackman? I frankly did not buy it, and it’s one of the only things here that feels artificially jammed into this finale to make room for a story in a second series. Again, it’s not that I dislike her character, but the addition feels sloppy.
Otherwise, there really is a whole lot to like about this finale. First and foremost, this is one of most thrilling television spectacles I’ve experienced. A combination of constant action and unexpected reveals are what Moffat seems to thrive on, and they’re all generally executed extremely well. On top of that, there’s a lot of misdirect, starting off with the hilarious cold open. I was led to believe that the introduction of Gavin Hardcastle was used not only to explain how the Institute came to have a group of trained solders on staff, but to set up an inevitable confrontation between Hyde and Hardcastle. How would Hyde fair against someone who was much more proficiently skilled in combat?
But that’s the trick; the entire montage fed right into that trope and then Moffat literally tosses it off of a building. I’m sorry, I love it. I love that we are meant to be intimidated by Hardcastle, and Hyde simply disposes of him in less than five seconds. The Institute consistently and constantly misjudges Hyde, and I think that it’s used as a larger theme here: they misjudge his strength, they misjudge his ability to change from one persona to the other, and they misjudge Hyde’s drive to protect and care for him family. Forced into a difficult situation when Mrs. Utterson kidnaps his family, we find out that the power drain at the end of “Episode Five” enabled Hyde and Jackman to essentially combine themselves, allowing one to take the strengths of the other. It’s with this that he finally leaves to pursue his family.
And oh lord, his family is so much more interesting, isn’t it? The “house” that Mrs. Utterson takes Claire and her children to is the true “headquarters” of Klein & Utterson, and home to the secrets about Tom Jackman’s origin. God, thinking back to those first moments with Claire is in the house, I’m surprised how completely unprepared I was for where the story was. It seemed odd that they’d stick Claire’s kids in those boxes, but I just wrote it off as a way for them to create a similar trigger of claustrophobia for the kids, a bargaining tool so that the Institute could get what they wanted. When Tom’s mother showed up, though, I started questioning who she was. Was she really Tom’s mother? How could she just appear and disappear so suddenly? Perhaps she wasn’t a physical body and I thought that perhaps she was a ghost or spirit of some sort. Hell, why couldn’t that happen? She could be some sort of messenger to guide Claire to the truth, right? Yeah WASN’T EVEN CLOSE.
That “truth” was, again, nothing I even guessed. Goddamn it, Moffat, how do you think of this stuff? The great misdirect, of course, was that Miranda was actually right all along. Well…sort of, that is. When Claire stumbled into that room with all the copies of Tom Jackman, of course we’re meant to think that he’s a clone. He’s not, but these bodies were: humans cloned specifically for their healing properties. It’s not something I’ve never seen before, but here, Moffat introduces an idea that would make a hell of a story for a second series. What sort of ethics fall into “growing” copies of the same man in order to cure diseases we think are incurable?
It is great to see it addressed just a bit in “Hyde” through Peter Syme. I think it was inevitable that Syme wouldn’t make it out of series one alive, and his death here is a way to hold him accountable for his gray morality and his constant betrayal of Tom Jackman. Yet to be fair, the show doesn’t go as far to say that it’s always immoral to shoot for the greater good, and Peter’s impassioned defense of what he’s done isn’t treated like a silly joke. But what Peter is willing to ignore here is that individual people are destroyed, that he has destined possibly hundreds of clones (who are still people) into living lives devoid of meaning, joy, happiness, or satisfaction. The cost is clearly low enough for him, but when Tom Jackman stands before him, demanding a justification for the horror of his life, it’s not enough for him. The man’s actions have ruined him, and may possible ruin his family’s life forever. Of course, killing Tom (or at least attempting to) wasn’t a good move, either. So Peter dies at the hands of the very man he attempted to profit from, and it’s the only fitting end I could see to Peter Syme’s life.
I think that moral ambiguity is represented in Claire’s story, too. She is merely an endgame and a tool to Klein & Utterson, and that sort of realization on her part is horrifying. Of course, she has had her own life, her own experiences, and Tom’s mother assures her that this hasn’t changed. But in learning that she is actually a clone of Jekyll’s maid, Alice, Claire learns exactly what Hyde is: the human expression of love. When I first heard that, I rolled my eyes so hard. It seemed ridiculous, but upon reviewing what we’ve seen from Hyde throughout this show, it’s actually supported by the material. It was the love Tom Jackman experienced while having sex with his wife that first started to bring Hyde around; it was the threatening of his wife that pulled Hyde out of Jackman’s body to defend her; it was the love of his children that prevented him from ever doing anything harmful to him, and by the end of series one, it’s Hyde’s extreme sense of love that saves the day. It’s an interesting commentary on the dual nature of how we express our love for one another.
Even if you go back and examine the final confrontation between Mrs. Utterson, Colonel Hart, and the rest of the soldiers, it’s love that triggers Tom to turn into Hyde and face his inevitable death. I think Hyde knew that there really was only one option left for him in what was probably an impossible situation. Trapped in a hallway with guns pointed at him, his children possibly suffocating in those boxes at the opposite end of the hall, Hyde chooses to do one last thing: save his children and wife. For a moment, I thought he’d make it to the soldiers and wreak havoc on them, but even this was too much for him. Instead, he takes the bullets, one after another, stumbling towards his singular goal. I was then completely surprised that at the last minute, Colonel Hart changed his mind. He helped Hyde just before he died. I think in a way, Hart had accepted his own death, which Hyde had correctly predicted as being two years out in the previous episode. Would he wait those two years knowing he’d helped murder an entire family, or would he take the chance and risk dying that day in order to save their lives?
Gina Bellman, once again, acts circles around everyone in this episode, and I was crushed when her sons asked her what happened to their father. Even though we learn that Hyde allowed his “body” to die entirely, leaving Jackman alive, I was totally blown away by the reveal that the Jackman children seem to possess some of the genetic features of their father. They held their breath that whole time??? THEY TRADED PLACES??? Oh god, see, this is why I want more of this show. WHAT IF THEY START CONVERTING TO SOMETHING WHILE STILL CHILDREN. oh god THAT WOULD BE SO HORRIFYING.
I think that this was written specifically with the idea that series two would happen. While a lot of stories are completed, I didn’t feel a sense of closure with Miranda and Min. (How rad would it be if the second series was the Fantastic Band of Women against Mrs. Utterson?) Of course, the very ending opens up the story to so, so much more. The entire time, we’ve been told that Dr. Jekyll had no descendants, and this still stands. However, MR. HYDE HAD DESCENDENTS. Which makes that woman Tom’s actual mother, who really did leave him on that train station over forty years before, who is ALSO MRS. UTTERSON.
SWEET SUMMER CHILD HOW DID I NOT FIGURE THIS OUT. Oh god, I won’t lie: I adore this reveal, even if it’s sad that we’ll never get to see more of this. Does this mean that there are other descendants of Mr. Hyde out in the world? What if that was what series two was about? THE ENDLESS POSSIBILITIES FOR WHERE THIS COULD GO.
Unfortunately, this is all that we get, but I’m still really happy with this ending. Sure, I’ll be left wondering what could be, but the story still feels fairly complete. This was a fun show to watch, and I’ll always appreciate the opportunity to see people act their pants off like this. This is one of Moffat’s most solid stories yet as well. I still love the first and third Sherlock episodes, as well as “Blink,” more than this, but that’s because…well, good lord, have you seen those?
AWESOME. Thanks for joining me on this brief journey. We start Mark Watches Buffy The Vampire Slayer on Monday. OH GOD IT’S REALLY HAPPENING OH MY GOD.
OH MY GOD BUFFY OH MY GOD I AM SO EXCITE. ALL I WANT TO DO IS EXPRESS MY EXCITEMENT IN BUFFY QUOTES BUT THEY WOULD BE SPOILERY AND ALSO BASICALLY I ALWAYS EXPRESS MYSELF IN BUFFY QUOTES.
Once again, my thoughts on Jekyll.
Haha, ditto on the Buffy quotes thing.
SO EXCITE FOR THIS!!! My new Buffy box set has been sitting on my desk for days, tempting meee….
But this time I swear I will watch ONE EPISODE PER DAY just like Mark so I can be as unprepared as he.
I've never watched Buffy that slowly. Even when I first started I was watching two a day, and then on the re-watch with my friends we would watch one disc at a time, so that was four episodes per watching-session. I can't imagine how it must have been to have to wait a WEEK between episodes.
I also really want to do the quotey thing.
Buffy! Oh, Mark, you are so extremely not prepared at all. Well, maybe a teeny bit since you've seen Firefly, but generally, no, not prepared.
It's so weird to me that someone would have seen Firefly BEFORE they saw Buffy. It's just… backwards.
I saw Firefly before I saw Buffy. I watched it a good five or six months before. I think the reason why that happens for some people is because Firefly is only 14 episodes and a movie, so when people are recommending Joss shows it sounds much more manageable than seven full seasons of Buffy. At least, that was my reasoning. I was in the middle of my senior year of high school when I decided it was time for me to watch a Whedon show, so I figured if I really couldn't stop watching Firefly it was a weekend of zero productivity, rather than a few weeks without productivity. There was much less going on during the four weeks I watched Buffy during the summer (and I was watching at least five or six a day).
Also, I feel like Firefly can be a good warm-up for Buffy. I LOVED Firefly, but I didn't have very many "I WAS NOT PREPARED FOR THIS" moments, whereas with Buffy I was having "WTF?! WTF?! I WAS NEVER EVER PREPARED FOR THIS!" moments all the time. So Firefly kind of helps you adjust to Joss's writing without completely shaking things up the way Buffy does.
…if that makes any sense whatsoever.
I can beat that. I watched Angel before I watched Buffy.
Ha! That must have been… confusing.
Not as much as you would think. I was not into Buffy, but I liked Angel. I just went back and picked up the episodes that related to Angel and Bob's your Uncle!
I was more confused when I watched TW: Children of Earth before any TW or Doctor Who 🙂
I think judging by the Serenity movie, Joss just didn't have enough time in the show to get to the WTF bits. He stuck some of them in the movie, but I really wish we had gotten two or three seasons out of Firefly in order to properly take the time to tell those stories. They could have been epic.
I do get a little mad at Firefly sometimes because ng gur fnzr gvzr ur jnf jbexvat ba Sversyl, uvf bgure gjb fubjf jrer fhssrevat. V ybir Sversyl fb zhpu, ohg V xvaq bs oynzr vg sbe gur fhpxntr bs Ohssl f7.
I am soo excited you're starting Buffy! It is possibly my favorite show of all time. I have been re-watching the episodes with a group of friends who have never seen it. It is so much fun watching them discover the awesomeness of this show. Plus I'm finally graduating from college next week and I only have two finals so I have a lot more time to geek out about Buffy. I CAN'T WAIT FOR NEXT WEEK!
I absolutely adored the tone and curve of the first 3-4 episodes, but really? So completely disappointed in the finale here. It felt sloppy. I never *stopped* rolling my eyes at the "love" reveal. It didn't ring anything positive for me, and I suppose that because of that, I couldn't empathize with the final reveals and character choices.
Which is a shame because of HOW MUCH I flat out ADORED the set up and beginning of this show.
All in all, I wish I'd stopped watching at the end of the fifth episode.
I also have my eyes in permanent roll over the "love" reveal. In part because that kind of thing — no matter how much it works in abstract and in a "show don't tell" way, as supported by the actions well-written characters — will always always sound dumb when you say it out loud.
But also because… the ultimate expression and distillation of love makes you go out and fuck a bunch of women, beat up people, and generally behave incredibly badly? Seriously? I haven't rewatched this episode yet, so maybe I'm forgetting some hand waving over this facet, but still. Yucky.
Oh, but p.s. I still really enjoyed this series. It was great fun to marathon with a visiting friend on a dark, stormy weekend. Even with my misgivings, it was a rollicking ride and I recommend it to friends often.
Omg I so agree. Didn’t ring true for me AT ALL, I don’t think rewatching that much of the material supports it. A few instances sure. But not enough. And the “a kiss for mommy?” repeated over and over while she did a really wretched attempt at an American accent really made me cringe. I so wish I had stopped watching ten minutes before the end, as I had already put two and two together about Mrs Utterson being his mother, so it wouldn’t have mattered.sigh.
Yeah, I agree to be honest. The series peaked in episodes 3-4, and then the finale came across as ludicrous. I still love the series and watch it despite its faults, but it really didn't work for me.
Mark!! Quick unrelated question about BSG!
Unless I missed it somehow, you never went through your season 4 predictions and discussed how wrong you were! Is this going to be a separate post or is it abandon forever for Buffy? (Also, I'm incredibly excited about you watching Buffy!! I have an excuse to rewatch it now!)
From how I remember it, immediately after this episode first aired the continuity announcer made a "wauugh, that was so creepy" noise before starting with the proper continuity announcing. 😀
New Sherlock episodes next month also – so not over for long!
Oh God! Why did I have to hear the worst American Accent EVER again! Boo! Bad Moffat Bad! I like Nesbitt's work and Gina Bellman, but that's it.
What is up with Moffat and his obsession with children saying "Mummy, I can't see you!" "Mummy I can't see anything!"? I was waiting for the kids to emerge with gas masks on their faces. Seriously. Someone explain this to me. If Michelle Ryan were a better actress I might have believed her sad goodbye.
I can't decide if I like this show or not. LOL.
When everything was saying RUN IF YOU WANT TO LIVE, I was like "are you my mummy?" because it was so much like the typewriter scene in Empty Child.
I didn't mind the idea that Katherine was in love with Jackman and sad to say goodbye, but I do kind of wonder what the POINT of her character was.
That's exactly what I was thinking re Empty Child.
Sherlock start's on New Year's Day, so not long to wait for that.
I am so happy that you enjoyed this series 😀 OMG BUFFY AHHHHH. Will you be doing Angel as well? Because there's some crossovers. When I watched them on DVD I had to keep switching the discs out so I could watch one episode of Buffy, then one of Angel, and so on so I didn't miss out on anything or get spoiled from the other show.
I love Angel too! I didn't think that they were that spoiler-y though, since at one point they were on different networks and couldn't mention the other show.
YAY! I'm so excited for Buffy! I've been waiting to re-watch my Buffy DVD's (for approximately the thousandth time) ever since I found out that Mark was going to watch them and I think that I'm going into serious withdrawals.
BUFFY BUFFY BUFFY BUFFY BUFFY BUFFY BUFFY OH GOD I AM SO EXCITED YOU HAVE NO IDEA. That show honestly changed my life the summer I watched it. I'm already planning out my comments for certain episodes. YOU. ARE. SO. FUCKING. UN. PREPARED.
Jekyll/Hyde finale: the friend I was sitting next to while watching it at the coffee shop wanted to slap me my reactions were so crazy and spastic. Everything was so simple, so brilliant. Moffat left all the clues and we just IGNORED THEM, like we always do. I was so completely furious with myself for not realizing that he was a descendent of Hyde…and the WTF?!?!?! moment at the end with his mother was so fantastic.
Anyway. As much as I adore all of his other work, this is definitely some of his best writing…for me, it's only topped by The Girl in the Fireplace, Blink, Big Bang, the Eleventh Hour, and A Study in Pink. But yes. An excellent, enjoyable diversion from finals :-).
Please don't use the words "crazy" and "spastic" here.
Agh, I'm sorry, I posted those without thinking! It's just been a stressful day, usually I'm more careful. It won't happen again!
OH GOD "Jekyll: Children of Hyde" would be the BEST THING EVER.
and so excited for Buffy!!!! YOU ARE NOT PREPARED.
Mark, you got it wrong – Hardcastle is NOT the mercenary that Hyde throws off the building. He’s one of the soldiers that were supposed to kill Miranda, Min and Katherine, and they captured him.
See, I spent about four episodes going, okay, so Dr. Jekyll never had any kids, but what about Mr. Hyde? I mean, especially if he was anything like Dr. Jackman's Hyde. They didn't really have convenience stores back then. And it's not like "fatherless" children are born with watermarks on them.
However I did NOT see the Mrs. Utterson reveal coming at. all.
I have to wonder about her, though. They said that until Jackman/Hyde there'd never been a "perfect" Jekyll/Hyde since the original, right? So no one knew about her? Or wasn't she perfect? I've decided that Utterson-Hyde somehow missed out on the superhuman speed and strength and all that, so while the credits were rolling Jackman was knocking her out with one of those nice vases and making his escape undeterred. That's my headcanon, okay? I HEADCANON WHAT I WANT.
Well, she was female, so her DNA was obviously different from Jackman's. And I think she did have SOME super-human powers, because she "died" in a car crash a long time ago but is still alive, and she doesn't look any older than she did then. And I don't think the people at the company knew she was another Jekyll/Hyde, because remember the scene when they were scratching their heads about how she got out of the interrogation room? Obviously they didn't know that she was also the head of the company.
I agree with your point about Katherine Reimer. She made no sense to me toward the end. I got that she was supposed to have a thing for Jackman, and that she basically was supposed to be the woman for Jekyll whereas Claire brought out his Hyde (and also loved his Jekyll, but she always seemed more free-spirited, etc). But she came across as useless as the show went on. We had little to no characterization. One of the great weaknesses of the series, I think.
I love the "HYDE" over the credits at the beginning. Hee.
OHHHH, Mrs. Utterson is supposed to be American? That took me forever. Baaaad accent.
AGH they have CHILD SIZE EVIL BOXES. WTF.
Oh, so he's Mr. Hyde's descendant. Yeah, I thought of that a while ago. The clone thing was a nice misdirect, though.
Hyde is love! Love is Hyde! OMG WHAT
So… Jekyll's DNA has the ability to create antibodies and the cure for cancer and stuff. And somehow one of Hyde's descendants had Jekyll's EXACT DNA, which is impossible, but whatever.
THE GREATER GOOOOOD
"We swapped." OMG ahahahaha. YOUR TWINS ARE THE SAME PERSON. SORRY CLAIRE. Maybe they can put on some sort of circus act. Like in The Prestige. (Mark, have you seen that?)
Is the mom like… supernaturally old because she has Hyde's super-healing powers? Is that how she was able to "die" in a car crash in whenever and then still be alive and not look any older than before? This is never really explained.
OH SHIT. Utterson and the mother are the same person, aren't they? AGH.
Ahahaha. That was pretty cool. I didn't see that one coming. I still have some questions, but it's neat.
Like, my roommate said, why would they specifically need to clone Alice? What is it about her DNA that makes her so special? What they really needed was for Jackman to fall in love with SOMEONE, but I don't believe that "soulmate" is something encoded in one's DNA. It was cool to have Claire be a clone, but I don't think it was necessary within the universe of the story. Also, does this mean that the friends who set Tom and Claire up were also fake friends? o_O
The idea of love as a dangerous, amoral force that only cares about protecting one's family is interesting. Hyde is the manifestation of the Mama Bear in all of us, I suppose. Do not mess with the cubs.
I think there are other kinds of love, though, that are more selfless and compassionate. I think Hyde is only the manifestation of one aspect of love. (I was totally right about this series being all about THE POWER OF LOVE, though.)
Now I want to re-watch the entire series with the ending in mind! Were they really the same actress playing both parts? Because that's kind of amazing. Except for the horrible accent.
I CAN'T EVEN FATHOM STARTING BUFFY. I CAN'T EVEN. OH MARK THIS IS GOING TO CHANGE YOUR LIFE. *bounces up and down in seat* MY FAVORITE TV SHOW IN THE WORLD EVER IN THE HISTORY OF TIME AND SPACE.
Also, to those new to Mark Watches, I'm posting this again:
For yea, those who post spoilers shall be relegated to the 8th circle of Internet Hell. And those who do not read the spoiler policy shall languish in the Vestibule, until such time as they RTFM, verily.
Post Buffy spoilers and I will END YOU. Or at least, I will delete your post. That's like ending you. If you were a post.
Like, my roommate said, why would they specifically need to clone Alice? What is it about her DNA that makes her so special? What they really needed was for Jackman to fall in love with SOMEONE, but I don't believe that "soulmate" is something encoded in one's DNA.
Well, but if they just left it to chance and waited for him to find somebody on his own, he might never have fallen in love with anybody. They'd want to do whatever they could to improve the chances, and re-introducing the girl he fell in love with before would at least do that, even if it's not genetic certainty or whatever.
And, you know, when you've got a cloning lab, every problem starts to look like an excuse for cloning something.
Also, does this mean that the friends who set Tom and Claire up were also fake friends? o_O
I guess so. It fits with the whole thing about his life having been stage-managed from the get-go. Did he even have any real friends?
Did he even have any real friends?
I'd say Miranda and Min now definitely count as REAL friends. 🙂
Now that we know who Mrs Utterson is, it's interesting to speculate about what she was up to. If Hyde is triggered by love, is the same true of his mother, or was she a response to something else? And if it's about love for her, who does/did she love, and how does it explain her actions?
I can kind of see her as a mother who wants the best for her son – as long as you remember that being a Hyde, she's the kind of self-centered mother for whom it's self-evident that the best thing for her child is to grow up just like her. It's not about helping Tom reach his Tom-Jackman-y potential, it's about making him reach his Hyde-y potential. (As opposed to his Heidi potential, which is a weird mental image.)
And the whole edifice of Klein & Utterson, and the enormous amount of time and energy they've put into this thing, was really just to achieve that end. I think her underlings did really believe it was about the cure for cancer, and maybe they'd have got one out of it in the end, but I don't think Hyde's mom ever cared about that except that it was a useful carrot to dangle in front of people. What does she care about other people's children dying?
I was wondering that too, what exactly are Mrs. Utterson's motivations? Because Hyde wanted to PROTECT his family, while Mrs. Utterson seems bent on destroying her son's life. The Hyde side of her anyway. I don't think Mrs. Utterson ever cared about the cure for cancer either–that was Syne's deal. Mrs. U was just interested in Jackman. I like your theory that she was just trying to help him become Hyde the whole time, although it makes her reaction to Hyde's "suicide" at the end kind of weird.
BUFFY!!!! AH! I just… I want to know what you think of all the characters! Oh and you will like truly be a Whedonite now. *sniff* such a happy moment. I might cry…
Are you really going to do this straight through? Buffy has 144 episodes and Angel has 110 episodes. 254 divided by 5 is 50 WEEKS! That's a year of BUFFY. Unless you do two episodes the seasons they cross over. Lemme see that's all of angel minus the last season so 88 episodes. So all of Buffy minus all of angel is 56. So the first 56 episodes of Buffy plus the crossover 88 plus the final 22 Angel. 166 episode days. That's only 33 weeks. 🙂 In comparison Harry Potter had 199 total chapters. Doctor Who including specials (but not the classic episodes you did) was 174 episodes.
… … … I need a life.
Although this will put a damper on me watching Dr. Who. I think I'm gonna finish the third season this weekend and then slowly watch the second season of Torchwood and then… and then… idk.
(Also accidentally purchasing Amazon Prime succeeds again!)
I don't think he's decided whether or not to do Angel yet, and I think we should wait until that point in Buffy and then he can decide.
It's been a while since I saw this so I can't remember exactly how it goes, but you know the scary monster ending? The monster effect there is totally the same as a screaming Weeping Angel!
OMG You are finally starting Buffy!!!!!!! I am so excited. I have been waiting and waiting! It was only my entire childhood! I hope you like it! (No pressure).
eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
P.S. Sorry I can't contribute to the whole Jekyll discussion but I live in the third world and my access to shows is limited so I have to hunt down stuff you are watching and then come back and read the reviews when I finally get to watch it.
I have advertised you on TWOP twice, I'm so excited (I hope I haven't broken the rules there because of that), and on another forum.
I have been horribly impatient for forever, but it is good and convenient that you are starting on Monday, because most of the semester is done and I can rewatch with you. 😀 😀 😀 😀 😀 😀
I assume you are watching through Netflix. The DVD covers and disc art tend to be vaguely spoily, with some particularly flagrant examples. *side-eyes them pointedly*
I hope he's watching through Netflix too. I'm not a fan of all that useless DVD art especially the little animations they insist on putting in the s2 (I think) DVD. I'm like Look just show me the episode!
And of course spoiling Qnex Jvyybj on the first freaking disc of that season.
Oh god, really? That's awful.
It's terrible that I knew exactly what you meant without rot'ing that. 🙂
They do have computer game animations in that season.
As for the printed art, it'd be better if it at least weren't spoily. Otherwise I quite like some of the covers and disc photos. It'd be nice to have them in a little flipbook, which, bonus, woudn't be exposed to wear as easily if it were taken care of.
Remember to update Suggestions!
Good Lord, what a finale. <3
Like Mark, I totally LOVED how Moffat gave us the whole montage of Benjamin enlisting the BADDEST MERCENARY EVER, who then prepared for a whole year for Mr. Hyde – and then have Hyde throw him off the building in five seconds or so.
Love the ladies getting together and escaping and even managing to kidnap Gavin Hardcastle (btw, o hai thar, Graham McTavish, AKA Dwalin! 😀 ) so that Tom and Hyde can learn the location of his family.
Yeah, I didn't buy Katherine's "emotional" goodbye to Tom either – but that's because I think Michelle Ryan is a terrible actress. Completely unconvincing and wooden.
Mr. Sexypants is the BEST NICKNAME EVER. <3
Peter Syme, you're an asshole, and I'm glad you died the way you did. If there's something worse than an asshole, then it's an asshole who tries to justify his assholery with the old "for the greater good" cliché. Smart boy, Mr. Hyde.
As for the big reveal – I deduced that Tom Jackman was a descendant of Mr. Hyde a long time ago (one of the main clues was Claire's reveal that Tom's eyes turn black whenever they have sex). Still was unprepared for the Tom's Mum = Ms. Utterson reveal. Props to the actress who played them – she really created two COMPLETELY DIFFERENT characters.
Gina Bellman was absolutely FANTABULOUS. Truly brilliant performance.
I loved Tom's final change into Mr. Hyde – it really WAS seen only by Claire, not even we, the audience, saw it (this the same kind of subtle breaking of the fourth wall like in "Blink"). And Hyde's last goodbye to Claire was very touching. He is such a careless character, that when he becomes serious, you know things really ARE serious and shit is going to get real. And his death was heartbreaking – that whole "Hyde gets shot but keeps walking" sequence could easily become ridiculous, but Nesbitt's superior acting made it real.
The Jackman boys "swapping" their boxes = CREEPY. I can't even think of WHAT they are – two personalities who should be in one body but are separated in two bodies? But can swap? Aaaah! My brain hurts.
So, all in all, fantastic finale (also, I loved that this episode's title was "Hyde" and not "Jekyll"). Tom and Hyde's story was nicely concluded, but Moffat left a little door open for a possible second series, should it come to that (I can imagine it being centered around the two boys, maybe even grown up, and what Ms. Utterson is up to).
Bravo, Moffat! 🙂
Hey Mark / all, I'm back (for BtVS!)
I was here for all of Mark Reads HP, flailed my way through Mark Watches Doctor Who, disappeared halfway through His Dark Materials because real life blah blah boring.
Anyway. BUFFY. I AM REALLY EXCITED.
Great to see you update Suggestions! I did the victory dance in my head! Especially to see Babylon 5 there.
Didn't you say you were going to see Torchwood: Miracle Day?
Love the banner! Though I was confused for a bit on why a pencil's in there, before realizing it's a stake. The places my brain goes sometimes.
Myself, I liked the "Hyde is love" reveal. It made sense and it was a nice twist on the character, instead of going with the expected "oh, he's Tom's dark side"/"the evil in man".
The last bits setting things up for another series that will never happen was super frustrating, so I wish that it could have left off with the family reunion & kids being creepy.
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